Al Razutis, Daddy’s Spice Cabinet, 1985, dichromate holographic assemblage, 40.64 x 71.12 x 7.62 cm. Courtesy of the Artist.
Al Razutis, Catch Me I’m Falling, 1986, dichromate holographic assemblage, 40.64 x 55.88 cm. Courtesy of the Artist.
Gravity wins, Entropy rules
Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 2, 7 – 9 pm
Featuring holographic assemblages made by Al Razutis in the 1970s and ’80s, Gravity wins, Entropy rules presents a rare and critical opportunity for the public to encounter holographic art. Born in 1946, Razutis is an artist and educator who has dedicated fifty years to innovations in media, such as early experimental film, broadcasting, holography, and virtual reality. Between 1972 and 1977 Razutis leased a two-building site underneath the Granville Street Bridge, where he established the first holographic art studio in Canada. Combining various found materials – including furniture, newspaper clippings, children’s toys, and stray electrical bits – together with dichromate and gelatin silver holograms, the little-known assemblages on display are peculiar and exciting works that blur the binary between the physical space of objects and the virtual space of images. The combination of passé, secondhand objects against the strange futurism of the images reflects the tension that has defined the history of holography: a strikingly innovative, nearly magical, medium which, despite the promise it showed as the future of imaging, is today relegated to obscurity.
